DOVER-FOXCROFT – It was not what Gov. Angus King had in mind when he coined his inaugural phrase, “Maine is on the move,” but Piscataquis County’s younger residents in fact are moving – to southern Maine, out of state, anywhere – for well-paying jobs.

The governor adopted the slogan in 1995 to indicate the state’s business climate would improve under his term, but it also succinctly described the mass exodus of young people that has occurred over the years in Piscataquis County.

Although the county is the size of Connecticut and part of Rhode Island combined, it has the smallest population of all counties in the state, a rank it also held in 1980.

While the majority of Maine counties experienced population growth in the last decade, Piscataquis County’s population declined from 18,653 in 1990 to 17,235 in 2000, a 7.6 percent drop, according to newly released U.S. Census figures.

That loss represented a crucial element – young people of childbearing age, say local officials, who cite declining school population.

Ironically, these young people say they cannot afford to raise their families in Piscataquis County because of the lack of quality jobs, but in later years, they return to retire here, which has contributed to the county’s distinction of having the oldest population in the state.

“When the fastest-growing industry [in the county is] nursing homes, then that’s not healthy for the economy,” said Warren “Pete” Myrick, president of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council.

In 1998, the latest figures available at the State Planning Office, the average age of Piscataquis County residents was 39.7 years, with a state average of 37.4, according to Richard Sherwood, policy development specialist.

In general, Maine is an aging state, Sherwood said Wednesday. An estimate by the U.S. Census for 1999 indicated that only West Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania had older populations than Maine.

“The census figures just confirm what we’ve been saying all along,” said William Hume, chairman of the SAD 4 (Guilford area) school directors. “What it really affects is our ability to offer top-quality education to the kids because we are so spread out, so we’re forced to look at consolidation or restructuring K through 12 [kindergarten through grade 12], which includes closing schools.”

“Losing your young people is the most troubling of all because that’s your future,” Milo Town Manager Jane Jones said.

Her town, whose streets are peppered with for-sale signs, lost 217 people in the last decade. Because northern Maine is losing its population, the region will have less political clout in Augusta, deepening the disparity in education, Jones said.

“We certainly have the quality of life, and what is missing is the job opportunities,” Jones said of her service-center community. The town has been hit hard by the closing of Dexter Shoe Co., the restructuring of the railroads and the closing of forest products industries.

Dover-Foxcroft’s decade population loss of 446 was not startling news to Town Manager Owen Pratt. The lack of jobs was one of three factors that influenced the population decline, he said.

“If a person can’t find a job acceptable to them, then they have to move, and that’s what’s happening,” Pratt said, citing as an example the experiences of his own two daughters. One moved to Colorado for a good-paying job, and the other is completing her education at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.

Any growth in Dover-Foxcroft, the county’s largest town and a service-center community, has been in the health care field.

The town is the home of a regional hospital, nursing homes and several service agencies for the elderly and mentally and physically handicapped. An expansion is being undertaken now at the hospital, a renovation is planned for a boarding home for the elderly, and the construction of a new residential care facility is scheduled to begin this year.

Technological changes that modernized practices and eliminated jobs, particularly in forest products, provided the second reason for the decline, Pratt said.

Pratt, citing his town’s 9.5 percent population loss, Greenville’s 14 percent decline and Milo’s 8.3 percent loss, noted the third factor represents a trend in service-center communities: People are moving out of large towns into rural space.

The high cost of living in service-center communities has driven residents to outlying rural towns, where taxes are considerably lower, Pratt said. It is cheaper to live in smaller towns and commute to jobs in the service-center communities, the town official said.

“People who live in service-center communities should not shoulder the entire burden to provide public services and to create jobs that everybody needs,” he said.

In fact, the census confirmed that growth has occurred in smaller towns surrounding service-center communities. Sebec, a small town on the outskirts of Dover-Foxcroft, had a 10 percent gain in population, from 554 to 612. The unorganized territories in the Moosehead Lake region, even though little is offered in the way of services to their residents other than low tax rates, increased in population by 72 percent, from 359 to 506. The tiny plantation of Lakeview, Milo’s neighbor, had an explosive growth of 87 percent, 23 to 43, the most of any Piscataquis County community.

Lakeview Plantation has no commercial businesses, no post office, no home rule, just state-imposed regulations. Residents who live outside the 1.3 miles of highway maintained by the plantation must provide their own road maintenance.

The reason for Lakeview’s growth is simple, according to Fred Trask, first assessor.

“The only advantage is we probably have the lowest tax rate in the state of Maine because we don’t provide the services,” he said. The tax rate of nearly $2 per $1,000 valuation covers just the basic obligations of the plantation, Trask said.

The trends identified by the census all stem from the lack of quality jobs, say municipal officials. Unless the flow of the county’s “lifeblood,” its young people, is stopped, the deaths will continue to outpace the births and the population will continue to decline.